Korea Government to Investigate Google’s Android OS for Anti-trust Violation

Google just can’t seem to get away from South Korea’s antitrust investigations. That Asian country started investigating Google back in 2011, and the whole case lasted until July 2013 when Korea finally dropped the antitrust investigation. This case has created all sorts of issues for Google, and the whole case was based on presumption Google has pressured Android OEMs to block other search engines and apps that rival Google’s. It seemed like this whole thing is behind us, but that’s not the case, sadly. According to a report from Business Korea, South Korea has embarked on yet another investigation, read on.

According to the source, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) will investigate whether Google or Apple are abusing their positions in the mobile OS market. FTC suspects that both of these companies are abusing their dominance, and are going to closely monitor and investigate their actions. That’s not all though, they’re also going to separately investigate the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, considering how powerful the two platforms are at the moment in the local market. FTC is going to embark on this investigation because they believe that Google’s and Apple’s ‘monopolistic positions’ are actually hurting the fairness of the mobile OS market.

The source has also included some interesting stats for us to check out, courtesy of StatCounter. According to the analysis, Android now accounts for 59.63% share in the global mobile OS market, while iOS represents 24.46% (July 2015). As far as Korea goes, Android holds 76.51%, and iOS 23.26%. Combine the two platforms, and you get a staggering 99.77% market share. If this is not dominance, then we really don’t know what is. This investigation actually sounds more like a precautionary measure considering the market share these two companies hold, though we cannot confirm that at the moment. The previous antitrust investigation lasted for 2 years, and it will be interesting to see what happens this time around. Google was the only investigated party last time, but Apple is also included this time around. That’s pretty much it, we’re sure that additional info will surface sooner or later, and as soon as it does, we’ll make sure to let you know, so stay tuned.